In October 2004, Israel asked Russia for the extradition of Shota Shamalashvili, who allegedly served as a key figure in a criminal organization that trafficked women into prostitution. According to what is attributed to him in the extradition request, Shamalashvili was responsible for "buying" the women in Russia and "selling" them to Israeli pimps. The offenses in which he was suspected were all committed outside of Israel, the majority of them within Russia. There he allegedly held the women, where he handled their sale to Israelis, and from there even organized their transfer to Israel via Egypt. Russia acceded to Israel's request, and Shamalashvili's extradition was underway. Recently, however, Israel asked Britain to hand over those whose names were linked to the affair known as the "Trojan Horse" affair - business espionage that involved hacking into the computers of Israeli companies. An intensive investigation by the Israel Police raised suspicions that an Israeli couple living in London were involved in the development and distribution of the hack - all within the UK only, and without any act being committed on their behalf in Israel - of the computer program through which the hack was carried out. On August 26, 2005, the Magistrate's Court of the Southern District of London, on the basis that the two had been charged with the offence of "conspiracy to defraud", decided to order their extradition to Israel.
However, it is clear that to the extent that the State of Israel expects that extradition requests it submits to foreign countries will be listened to in recognition of its vital interests, it should also treat the other requests.
Safeguarding public policy
- At the beginning of my remarks, I discussed the "basket principle" set forth in the Extradition Law, according to which a person should not be extradited where it contradicts public policy (Section 2B(a)(8) to the law). The rule is that this public enactment is nothing more than an "external public enactment." Where the extradition is - i.e., the authorization of the application of the foreign law - entails a violation of the basic values of the local legal system, and the act of extradition is no longer appropriate, since it is contrary to public policy. This is in contrast to an "internal" public policy, which only means that local law could have given to the issue
that there is a different response at issue than that offered by foreign law, which in itself is not sufficient to prevent extradition (see: Civil Appeal 1137/93 Ashkar v. Hymes [53], at p. 651; The Yagodiev case [13], at p. 585; Criminal Appeal 2521/03, supra [9], at p. 346; Criminal Appeal 3439/04 Bezeq (Buzaglo) v. Attorney General [54], at pp. 300-301; The Feinberg case [8], at pp. 58-59).